I personally don’t want to have my Apple ID associated with my account on my Macs (especially since I can still set up all the iCloudiness I want using iTunes and the iCloud preference pane), so I don’t set that up. See below the jump for how to avoid associating your Mac’s account with your Apple ID and also how to remove an existing Apple ID from your account entry in System Preference’s Users & Groups preference pane.

How to skip Apple ID setup on login

When you first upgrade to Mountain Lion, or when you’re setting up a new account on a Mountain Lion Mac, you’ll be prompted at login to enter your Apple ID.

To avoid entering your Apple ID at this point, click the Skip button in the lower-right corner.

Click the Skip button at the next window to confirm that you want to skip signing in with your Apple ID.

Click the button above Start Using Your Mac. After that, login will complete and your desktop will come up.

Removing your Apple ID from your account in Users & Groups

If you had previously associated your Apple ID with your account, here’s how to remove your Apple ID from your account on your Mac.

I have found that disassociating the apple id from a user account also disables the ability to connect two computers using the ID rather than username and password. I kept having problems with the latter not having the same user rights to some of the files on the remote computer.

I wonder if anyone knows if removing the Apple ID completely from being associated with the user causes any unforeseen side-effects? iCloud doesn’t seem to use it in its System panel, and continues to show the original ID it after I turned it off in the Users panel.

Just seems I can sign in with an Apple ID in too many places: User panel; iCloud panel; Mail prefs; iTunes sign in; iTunes Home sharing; FaceTime; iCal;